Clarence House, King Charles’ home in London, will be closed. Another proof that the problems continue is that the British royal family has also been affected by Brexit.
Clarence House, home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding day evening reception
Even the monarchy is not immune to Brexit. Clarence House, the King’s home in London, will be closed to tourists this summer due to staff shortages caused by Brexit and the pandemic.
Palace officials hoped to open the house to the public this summer, along with Frogmore House, another royal residence where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle hosted their wedding day evening reception. But the Royal Collection Trust, the royal family’s department that oversees tourist visits to palaces, is struggling to find people willing to work in retail, catering or other jobs. Pundits say it will be a curse for Prince Harry and his wife who have gone to America.
This means officers have only enough men to work at other royal residential properties – a disappointment for anyone wanting to gain an insight into how the king lives.
The Royal Family has lost 150 staff due to downsizing
Interest in Clarence House, a four-storey 19th-century building on The Mall, where Charles has lived since 2003, has grown since his coronation.
“We have focused on other palaces and areas,” said Sarah Davies, a spokeswoman for the Royal Collection Trust. “I think there will be a new interest in Clarence House now that it is the King’s residence.”
The Royal Collection Trust lost 150 staff to redundancies during the pandemic as it was forced to borrow money to contain the pandemic. “We lost a lot of experienced staff who could have done the tours,” he said.
No one knows for sure how important the royal family is to British tourism because Visit Britain does not directly collect data on why people come to Britain because of the King. It’s a “sensitive issue,” an official explained at a recent Tourism Alliance conference.
Clarence House is open to tourists every summer
But royal residences such as Buckingham Palace have been popular attractions since they first opened to the public in the summer of 1993, and last year Windsor Great Park attracted more than 5 million visitors, making it the third most visited site in Britain.
Clarence House is open every summer, but closed for short-term building works in 2019 and has not reopened since. The staffing issues faced by royal residences are similar across the tourism industry.
UK Hospitality estimates there are 132,000 vacancies in the sector. European students who take summer jobs while improving their English now require expensive work visas.
“It’s going to be very difficult to recruit after Brexit,” said Bernard Donoch, director of the Society for Key Audiences, which includes the Royal Collection.
Donoghue blames Brexit and the Covid pandemic for many foreign workers deciding to return to their home countries, writes theguardian.com.
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